


No Sign of Weakness

by mrsfizzle



Series: If She Looked Over [4]
Category: DCU, Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Cutting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Blood, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26045791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle
Summary: Lex is wracked with nightmares while recovering from Helen's betrayal and three months on the island. He turns to an alternate method of coping with the pain, but Martha catches him. Takes place between "If She Looked Over" and its sequel. Contains mild self-harm.
Relationships: Martha Kent & Lex Luthor
Series: If She Looked Over [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856353
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	No Sign of Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> As stated in the summary, this contains self harm. The harm itself is relatively mild, but it is described in detail.
> 
> This story takes place between "If She Looked Over" and its sequel, "Truth & Justice" (which will begin on Monday).
> 
> If you haven't read ISLO, this takes place between 3x2, "Phoenix," and 3x3, "Extinction." Assume a strong familial relationship between Lex and the Kents.

Lex jolted awake in the middle of the night. Another nightmare.

He was thankful he hadn't made a noise when he awoke, like he had the night before, though he knew it was probably only a matter of time before his night terrors came back. He'd been having them since Julian's death, often waking himself up with his own shouting. And dreams about the island had been frequent since his return to Smallville. He dreamed he had never left—that his return to Smallville had been a dream itself. He could feel the aching hunger, the burning thirst, the blistering sun, and the desperate loneliness. Of course, none of those pains began to compare to the ache that didn't fade at all when he woke up: the feeling that he deserved it all.

But tonight's dream hadn't been about the island. It hadn't even exactly been a nightmare, technically. It had been about Helen. They'd been on their honeymoon. They'd been happy, and in love, and ready to grow old together.

The day before, Lex had asked the Kents for privacy so he could mourn for the loss of Helen, and they had granted it. In some ways, crying for Helen felt similar to crying for his mother had once been: terribly painful in the moment, but a relief after the waves of grief passed. Tonight, as he sweated into the borrowed cotton sheets, he realized once wouldn't be enough. Not nearly enough.

He sat up straight in the small bedroom and reached over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. At least this much was familiar to him—waiting until night to cry. Allowing himself to show no sign of weakness in the light of day when someone might see him.

He buried his face in his hands, and waited, and waited . . .

And the tears wouldn't come.

It was just as well. He didn't deserve the relief. He turned the lamp off and rolled over on to his stomach, but he wasn't going to be able to sleep, not with the tears so close to the surface. Deserved or not, he needed to shed them.

He'd forced himself to cry before. It had been a very, very long time since he had done it, and he wasn't sure it would still work. Besides, he couldn't do it while he was at the Kent house . . .

Or maybe he could. Maybe it didn't matter. He was sure they were all asleep. He looked down at his wrists and forearms—they were already cut and scratched from his time on the island. If he aimed for an existing cut, the worst they'd think was that it was taking an oddly long time to heal.

Lex tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs, into the kitchen. He was pretty sure Jonathan kept the cooking knives sharp for Martha, which meant cleaner wounds. He would have to be careful not to pierce too deeply. It was probably best to just barely graze the skin beside one of the existing wounds, and if it didn't hurt enough, he would see if the Kents kept pure lemon juice in the fridge. If not, he knew they had lemonade and salt.

He chose a paring knife from the block, then reconsidered and picked up a serrated knife instead. Most of his cuts were ragged; a serrated knife would achieve a similar effect, and it would also hurt more. He sat at the kitchen table, looked over the bandages Martha had given him, and peeled back one to reveal a particularly bad scratch, halfway healed.

His inner darkness hadn't spoken to him since he'd returned to the Kents, and it wouldn't condemn him for things it had done itself, so he had to condemn himself.

"Helen didn't love you," he whispered. "How could she? You betrayed her."

He touched the cold tip of the blade to the smooth pale skin, a millimeter to the side of the scrape.

"You lied to her. You stole from her."

He pressed the edge into his skin, just barely breaking it. It stung fiercely, and he gasped, then clenched his teeth and made himself continue.

"You deserve this. You deserve so much worse than this."

He sliced up his forearm, a half-inch line. The pain made him hiss, and a drop of blood ran down his arm, but it wasn't enough yet to bring tears to his eyes.

"You wouldn't have been a good husband. You—"

" _Lex!_ "

He jumped, and the blade cut a little deeper, surprising him. "Ah!" He dropped the knife and leapt out of his seat. Martha was hurrying toward him from the living room area. He should have checked to make sure no one was there. "Mrs. Kent—"

Her eyes were wide with panic. "What are you doing?"

"I can explain—"

"You're bleeding!"

"I know, but—"

"We said you could stay until all of the cuts healed, but we wouldn't have kicked you out if you wanted to stay longer."

He blinked—he wouldn't have expected her to jump to that conclusion. "It's not about that."

"You _wanted_ to hurt yourself?"

"Not badly. I swear."

She sat next to him at the table and scooted her chair a little closer to his, holding out her hand. He sighed and gave her the knife, but she set it aside and held out her hand again. It took him a moment to realize she was asking to see his arm. He clenched his teeth and complied.

"It's not deep," he told her as she examined the cut. "I wasn't trying to kill myself, Mom." He realized he'd slipped and called her _Mrs. Kent_ again when he first saw her.

"Then why did you do this?" There were tears in her eyes.

A million explanations ran through his mind, but they'd just promised honesty to each other the day before. "I was thinking about Helen. I appreciated the way you and . . . Dad . . . gave me space to mourn yesterday. Despite what you've seen in the past year or so, I'm not usually a crier. My father . . . ah, Lionel taught me that tears were a sign of weakness."

"What's wrong with weakness?"

He swallowed. He didn't have a way to answer that, so he went on. "I woke up from a nightmare, and I wanted to cry for her. I . . . needed to."

"You'll never be judged for tears in this household, sweetie."

"I know." He looked deep into her eyes. "I _know_. But the tears wouldn't come, so I thought I'd help them along."

"So you hurt yourself? Did you think we would be okay with that?"

"I didn't think you would find out." He grimaced at how dishonest that sounded. "I didn't know what else to do."

"You could have woken me up."

"I didn't want to bother you."

"But you'd do _this?_ " A tear fell down her face. "You wouldn't wake me up, but you would hurt my son and make him bleed?"

For a second, he wondered what Clark had to do with this. Then he realized what she meant. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Is this . . . the darkness?"

"No. This isn't what the darkness does."

"Then why didn't you wake me up?"

He winced and covered over the cut with the bandage he had peeled back. "I needed to cry. Not to be comforted."

She stared at him in silence for a few seconds as he smoothed over the bandage on his arm, then stood from her seat. "Come with me."

He stood and followed her into the living room, sitting beside her on the couch. He half expected her to take his hand or put hers on his shoulder or knee, but she didn't. Actually, she remained on the opposite side of the couch from him.

"Tell me about Helen," she said.

Lex let his breath out. "She tried to kill me."

"Before that. Did you love her?"

"Yes."

Martha smiled.

He looked down, smiling a little himself. "She was brilliant. The only woman I've ever dated who could keep up with the Luthor world. Maybe that should have been a red flag, but she was a doctor, so it was expected that she'd be intelligent. She had the opportunity to do medical research at Johns Hopkins, and she turned it down because I asked her to come live with me."

"Mm."

"And she was beautiful. She had these deep brown eyes, sometimes I'd get lost . . ." Lex closed his eyes, remembering Helen's. "I kept thinking it was too good to be true. With everything I've done wrong in my life, I could never deserve her. Every day I'd wake up and wonder if she'd still be there beside me, and she always was. She thought she was a mess when she woke up, but I couldn't see it, she was so beautiful, and then she said she would marry me . . ." At last, his eyes began to mist. "And then I stole from her."

"What happened?"

"You know what happened. I asked for her forgiveness, and she pretended to give it to me. But I guess that wasn't hard. She had been pretending a lot of things, for a long time." He looked away. "She didn't love me."

"That's not your fault."

"No, but I can't blame her, either. I wouldn't have been a good husband. I'm twenty-three and I've been married twice, and both times . . ." He bit his tongue. He sounded so pathetic, so self-pitying. So weak. He cut off his speech with, "They knew I was bad news before I knew they were."

"You weren't bad news to us. You being alive was the best news we'd heard in a long time."

He wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just said, "Suffice it to say, I doubt I would have been the kind of husband Helen wanted."

"What kind of husband did you want to be?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "The kind of man she could be proud of. Worthy of her respect, and her love, and most of all, her trust. Someone who could protect her and defend her honor if she ever needed it, and make her happy."

"Kids?"

"Yes," he said, fast enough to surprise even himself. "We probably would have waited a little while, but eventually, yes."

"You would have made a good father. I think Jonathan would have been willing to teach you a lot."

"I had hoped." Lex looked down. "Helen had a temper with the less competent orderlies, but she was actually good with kids, and she was patient with people she cared about. I thought about that a lot. She would be a good mother. I think we would figure it out together, and our kids would turn out alright. And if you were willing, you would be their grandparents. Between our wealth and your love, I think they'll be a bit spoiled, but Helen's pretty no-nonsense, and I couldn't have been much worse than my own . . . than Lionel . . ."

The words slipped out so easily. Like he had completely forgotten that that future had been erased.

Reality crashed back in, and it crashed hard. His breath caught in his throat.

"That's . . . that's what I wanted. I wanted to prove to Helen that I could be a good husband, and a good father."

"Lex, look at me."

His eyes met hers.

"It may still happen. But it won't be with Helen."

"I still love her," he whispered. "God help me, I love her so much."

The floodgates broke open. He put his head down and wept.

He expected Martha to pull him into her arms immediately, but she didn't, and he was thankful. He needed to cry on his own for a little while before he could take her comfort.

She scooted a little closer to him on the couch, though she didn't attempt to make contact yet. "You will love again."

"I don't _want_ to love again," he ground out through his sobs.

"I know. But you will want to." She put a hand on the couch back behind him. "And you will."

"No. I can't even imagine . . ."

"I couldn't imagine loving another child as much as I love Clark. Then I met you."

He looked up to see tears running down her face as well. "Mom?"

"And you've been through so much, and I just got you back, and then I find you _hurting_ yourself—" Her shoulders shook with sobs.

A year ago, Lex would have been at a loss for what to do. But he had learned from her. He took her into his arms, holding her head to his shoulder and stroking her hair. "I'm sorry, Mom," he whispered through his own tears.

"Do you know how dangerous that is? What if you had cut too deep?"

"I was careful, I—"

"I can't lose you again, I _can't_ . . ."

He cried harder. "I'm so sorry, Mom."

"Why did you do it?" Her voice cracked.

"I needed to cry."

" _Lex._ "

He swallowed. She always did know when he wasn't telling the whole truth. "I deserved the pain."

She held onto him harder. "What do I have to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I have to do to make you see yourself the way I see you?"

His arms fell limp around her, and she reached up to stroke his head. Her grip had reached a painful tightness, but he wouldn't have traded it for anything. The last of his tears fell into her hair, and he felt the last of hers soak into his t-shirt.

When they had both settled down to sniffling, she let go of him, and she stood, gesturing for him to stand as well. She put an arm around him and began walking toward the staircase.

"What were you doing awake?" Lex asked.

"I wasn't. I was sleeping on the couch."

"Why?"

"I always do, when I'm worried about one of my kids."

"But your bedroom is closer to us than the living room."

"I know, but I sleep lighter out here, and Clark often wanders into the living room when he can't sleep."

He frowned. "You should go to bed. You've been worried about us for a long time."

"I'll go to bed if you make me a promise."

"Of course."

"You'll come wake me up if you have another bad dream."

"Okay."

"And don't make me hide the knives, young man. Because I will."

He sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

They stopped at the guest bedroom—his bedroom. Martha reached up to pull Lex's head down far enough for her to kiss his forehead. "I love you, sweetie."

"I love you too, Mom."

"Get some sleep."

"You too."

He stepped into his room before she disappeared down the hall. He flicked off the lamp on the nightstand and settled under the soft, warm covers. A few more tears fell as he thought about the love he'd been shown and the love he'd been denied, but when he fell asleep a few minutes later, he didn't dream for the rest of the night.

_End_


End file.
